Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, has said that his principal’s position on government not going to allocate foreign exchange to those who decide to train their children outside the country stands.
Adesina, according to a report, said those who could afford foreign education for their children were free to do so but not at the cost of the State.
Asked whether President Muhammadu Buhari, his boss, could afford foreign education for a child at a time he sent a daughter for school abroad, Femi Adesina simply returned the question: “You will need to ask him.”
Buhari was Governor of North Eastern State, Minister of Petroleum who instead of enriching himself spent Nigeria’s oil wealth on building four refineries for the country without a push by the then Military Head of State Olusegun Obasanjo, and, aside being a retired General of the Nigerian Army following his place as Military Head of State, he was Chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) before becoming democratically elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
An enviable and charismatic presidential image maker of African most populous nation, Mr. Femi Adesina reportedly told his interviewer that President Buhari sold his property to access foreign exchange (forex) for his child’s education abroad when it became critically necessary for her to go abroad for her studies. All Buhari’s children with the exception of one necessitated by the poor state of Nigerian universities under the past administration of People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s government led by Goodluck Jonathan were educated in Nigerian public schools.
Reportedly speaking in an interview with Osasu Igbinedion on The Osasu Show, Adesina said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), is experiencing a paucity of forex.
Corroborating Adesina’s stance, the president himself had earlier said in an interview with Al Jazeera that it would henceforth be “tough luck” for those who are (or wish to school abroad) to access forex”.
“Those who can afford foreign education for their children can go ahead but Nigeria cannot afford to allocate foreign exchange to those who decided to train their children outside the country,” he said in March.
Asked if the president could afford the education of his children abroad, Adesina said: “You will need to ask him.”
“Don’t forget that it was in the public domain even before he became president that when one of his children needed to go abroad he had to sell his property; maybe it was his house in Lagos or somewhere,” Adesina said.
“Anybody that wants to train a child abroad must be sure that he or she can afford it. If you can afford it no problem.
“At a time like this when there is paucity of foreign exchange, what the president is simply saying is that central bank may not be able to provide forex but you can always buy your forex at the parallel market if that is what you want.”
Though the CBN has not officially banned the access to forex for education and medical bills, the President has said explicitly that the country cannot afford it.
